Speaking of the Gala Dinner... It was preceded by a free drinks
session for all members of the Convention, sponsored by Transworld,
who are Terry's UK publishers. Then came the opening of the Dragon
Racing event, which was MCed by The Shend, the actor who played the
title role in Hogfather and the barbarian chief in Colour of Magic,
as well as a thug in Johnny and the Dead, making him the actor who
has appeared in more Pratchett movies than any other. He brought his
Hogfather tusks along, and thoroughly charmed everyone he met. When
the dragon racing had been introduced, a bunch of us went off to the
gala dinner. Where the food, wait for it, was excellent.

During dinner, there was much discussion of the view of corsets from
the top table among at least two of the guests. After yet another
passed in front of the table and drew appreciative sighs, I felt
obliged to point out that the young lady wearing it was the same
person who had played Vetinari's humourless (and certainly
corsetless) secretary Drumknott at a few events at both this and the
previous DWcon in '06. I shall long treasure the double-take this
information inspired.

Bruce kept his Gala Dinner speech short, and then Terry spoke, and
admitted that yes, he'd been trying to find flaws in the Con and
problems with the hotel, but it had been damned difficult and he
didn't have much to work with. And that he was interested in coming
back again in 2010, which was news received with some joy, as you'd
expect. And around then someone who'd had a bit too much alcohol
shouted for Vetinari to speak, and this was followed by someone else
shouting that Vetinari was her hero. Stephen Briggs was there in his
Vetinari robes, true, but had not planned to speak. But when a male
voice then yelled that he wanted to have Vetinari's children, Terry
decided it was time to drop Mr Briggs in it, and sat down, leaving
Vetinari to thank his creator and have stern thoughts about scorpion
pits.

Oh yes, the scorpion pit! As some may be aware, UK DWcons in recent
years have been infested by Guilds. And then a parody guild called
the Dark Clerks turned up. This time, they brought a black velvet
bag labeled "Portable Scorpion Pit," full of pictures of scorpions
and various plastic animals and monsters (they couldn't find any
actual scorpions). And then they helped out at an event organized by
other "real" guilds, called "Where's the Mime, My Lord?" which I'm
told is based on a UK game called "Where's the Sheep?" A crowd of
people stood behind Briggs (channelling Vetinari, although he was
allowed to not wear the huge, hot, heavy robes). The crowd had to
sneak up to him, and every so often someone would chant, "Where's
the mime, my lord?" He would then turn around, and the crowd had to
act as un-mime-like as possible. He would stalk over and tag whoever
was too mimey for his taste, and then a group of "guards" swooped in
to drag the protesting street artist to the scorpion pit.

This sounds mad. It was. First, as I said, the "pit" was a velvet
bag, and "being thrown into the scorpion pit" actually meant
sticking your hand in the bag. But the first person tagged by Briggs
put up a fight, and tried to get away. I believe he was tackled, and
from then on, many had to be physically dragged over to the Pit.
Some people even ran away when Briggs was trying to tag them, and he
was forced to give chase. This had some of us, watching from the
back of the room, open-mouthed in awe, seeing what little it took
for people to do such completely bonkers things, and my face wound
up hurting from all the grinning and laughing. I have no idea how
things like that happen, and they end up being the hits of the
Convention! That was just my favourite and maddest example to date.

This mime-torturing event happened to be next door to where Dr.
Patrick Harkin was giving a lecture on the medicine of the
Discworld. After having been interrupted one too many times by the
roars of laughter from the next room, he stormed over to the door
connecting the two rooms and flung it open... only to be confronted
with Briggs/Vetinari, right in front of the door and facing it,
looking serious while what appeared to be his own army of loonies
were advancing on Pat. As you'd expect, poor Pat - who has been a
university lecturer for many years and has never been found at a
loss for words before - lost that round.

Another one for the Vetinari fans was "The Weakest Guild," in which
he took over Anne Robinson's job. Again, more fun was had than you
would have thought possible. There was irony, and everything. The
Witches won.

We were introduced to a new film crew in "Meet the Crew," these
being the ones who've been following Terry for the past 6 months,
making a documentary about this 25th anniversary of Discworld year
for the BBC to show in (we think) January of 2009. It was great fun
meeting them and hearing about their travels and some stories about
what we're likely to see when it airs. The Mob returned as well, and
after telling us a bit about their plans for filming "Going Postal"
and showing us the blooper reel and a deleted scene from Colour of
Magic, Rod Brown then returned to the Gala Dinner wearing
Twoflower's costume from the movie and most of us spent the night
not recognizing him and wondering where someone had managed to find
a shirt with the same pattern as Twoflower's. Next time, Ian
Sharples is threatening to come in costume as well!

Maskerade: it was the first time I've seen a costume contest since
the first DWcon, in 1996. Pat Harkin was the best possible MC for
it, and did a brilliant job stalling while competitors got their, a
ha ha, acts together. It is a fact that as soon as Beth Delany sang
her version of "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, rewritten for Tiffany
Aching, I leaned over to my sister and said "Now THAT is the best-
in-show winner!" I was right, too. There were many good acts,
though, and my sister had been leaning over to me after each one
saying, "THAT one's gonna win!" There were slightly fewer entries
this time, but nearly all of them were just brilliant. I also loved
the "Definitely NOT Nac Mac Feegles" guy. I've had "Defying Gravity"
stuck in my head for nearly two weeks, now, though...

I only managed to stay up till a decent DWcon bedtime (5:30am) on
one night, but as it was the night after the gala dinner, I think I
picked the right one. Many silly conversations were had, and I have
a vague memory that a menu was passed around to be signed by people
for a German Convention member, and Stephen Briggs wrote out some
German for me to copy, and now I'm not sure, but I think it said "Do
you have a vegetarian menu?" There were also a few diagrams drawn to
explain what people were talking about, we saw how Dark Clerk Jill
can juggle eyebrows, and my sandals cut into the back of my heel
till it bled and I never felt a thing. So I must have been having
fun. And there was further admiring of corsetry.

I didn't have any alcohol, but no one bought me a book, a monkey, or
a goblin, either. And I never got a back-rub. Those are my main
complaints.

Closing Ceremony: madness. Bruce staggered onstage and slumped in a
chair half undressed, wearing the Regency gear he'd worn to the gala
dinner. The lights coming on woke him up, and after asking the
audience if they could write down their appreciation instead of
making loud noises, he asked Terry to come onstage and deal with us
as he wasn't up to it. Terry then thanked everyone for a great
weekend and much corsetry, which seems to have made a great
impression on him. Behind him, Bruce pulled something out from under
himself on his chair, and it turned out to be, yes, the most
popular corset of the previous evening. Then they moved on to the
prize giving. Bruce read them off, Terry congratulated them and the
Shend, wearing his tusks, handed over the prizes. I believe the
first place guild was the Unseen University Wizards - Ian Stewart
was the guild head, anyway. Bruce pulled himself together to give us
a speech, thanking his committee for their dedication and in
particular the two who had been told their house had been robbed the
Friday night of the Con, and who had chosen to stay till the end:
Pam and John Hicks. And because sometimes the universe works that
way, their missing belongings HAVE been found and are to be returned
to them! (YAY!)

And then Brian Nisbet stepped forward as the Chair of Discworld
Convention 2010, there were streamers and party hats, and much
cheering...and then messages over the radios to clean up the stage,
and a little old man came on to sweep it all up...

Of course, this time when the audience said we'd all just got there,
he said we'd already used that trick and it wasn't going to work
twice.

Rats.

CODA: The next morning, the hotel was welcoming their next
convention: Avon. And for some reason, there was a cameraman filming
the arrival of their "delegates." I was so hoping that in the middle
of this, they'd have a shot of Terry walking across the lobby to
check out. Since we had refrained from sending any of our many men-
in-drag members over to the Avon rooms to give them a real
challenge, I can't help hoping there was a nice dose of culture
shock for someone. Maybe next time some Avon people would like to
arrive early and help our Nac Mac Feegles with their makeup...?

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

4) SEPTEMBERMEET

Tony Evershed writes:

I'm resuming my pattern of organising a September Meet in London at a
time close to my birthday - though I should stress that it is *not* a
birthday party - after a break last year (moving house, blah blah blah.)
I'm intending to host another Not-A-Birthday-Party meet at the Pembury
Tavern (Hackney/E8) in London, starting at around 18:00 on Saturday 20
September.

That wraps it up for this Special Edition. A reminder for our UK
readers: Nation comes out on the 11th of this month, as do The
Folklore of Discworld and The Illustrated Wee Free Men. We'll see
you in a few weeks with the regular September issue of WOSSNAME. In
the meantime, I wish you a happy autumnal equinox, or a happy spring
one for our antipodean readers. Wotcha!

-- Annie Mac

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Copyright (c) 2008 by Klatchian Foreign Legion

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